


Mostly Exaggerated

by elviaprose



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-04
Packaged: 2018-04-07 16:28:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4270116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elviaprose/pseuds/elviaprose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the aftermath of Gauda Prime, the rebels tell ghost stories.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mostly Exaggerated

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by Aralias. Thank you so much!
> 
> I wrote this fic for the B7 Friday prompt "Tanith Lee," but didn't finish it quite on time. Thank goodness for catch up week.
> 
> All of the stories in this fic are based on ghost stories by Tanith Lee. If any of them sound particularly interesting, I can tell you where to find them.
> 
> This fic is technically gen, but slashy in a B/A sort of way.

Avon stood with his back braced against a tree, eyes closed against the rapidly fading sunlight. He’d walked until the sounds of the others talking and laughing were inaudible, then stopped. Night always fell fast on Gauda Prime. The days on this planet were, according to Orac, shorter than on Earth by three hours. Not that Avon could tell the difference, really, beyond a vague sense of unease. He hadn’t developed much of a sense of time over the years. Avon had spent most of his life on Earth enclosed in windowless rooms lined with computer panels. Then he’d gone to prison, where time was more difficult still to keep track of. Then after prison – space, where they travelled faster than light and slept in shifts. 

He had found Blake this morning, but it didn’t seem like this morning. His memory of the event was as flawed as if it had happened ten years earlier. Avon remembered Tarrant telling him Blake had betrayed him. Then…Arlen had told Avon to drop his gun. Drop your gun, or you won't live long enough to shoot him, she’d said. Him, shoot Blake? Yes, he’d probably been going to. He supposed she’d wanted to take them all alive. It was easier to surmise what she had been thinking than what Avon himself had in mind. He'd let the gun fall. Drop yours, too, Blake had ordered Arlen, but she’d refused to do it.

After that it had all happened very quickly. Arlen had told them that she was a Federation officer, and they were under arrest. Federation troops had arrived. Dayna had set off a powerful explosive. He hadn’t seen her do it, but he’d felt the room rock, seen Blake stagger, then looked away from Blake to see Dayna’s hand come back down to her side. This way, Blake said, taking Avon’s arm. People were shouting, crying out. Avon hadn’t bothered to see who else was behind him. He’d just let Blake take him where he would. 

That turned out to be a locked room that contained a short-range teleport, which Blake had built. The teleport would take them to the other side of the planet, into the dense, unexplored Southern Forest. Blake had packs of supplies and clothes ready. He’d been prepared to leave in a hurry, at least, and had found a place to hide where no one was likely to come looking. Avon hadn't known that Blake had bothered to make a study of the Liberator's technology, but it was very good he had. What Blake had managed to replicate wasn't of the caliber of the Liberator's technology or even Scorpio’s, but it was quite the feat, all the same, without Orac and without Dorian’s rudimentary efforts. Now, all of that work was completely destroyed, of course. They’d blown it all away behind them. A waste. 

Blake had told his people that the sudden invasion of his base had nothing to do with Avon's arrival, that it was pure coincidence. He had assured them, too, that when Avon had shot Klyn, he'd thought he was in a bounty hunter's base. It was completely true, and _Blake_ had said it, and it still wasn’t enough, Avon could see, to really convince them. 

Avon had retreated first into cold silence, and then into the forest, on the pretext of scouting the area. It was unpleasant to be loathed, of course, but it wouldn’t matter, in the end. He didn't need to be liked; he needed to be alive. He needed to win. And for that, he needed Blake alive, to serve as a figurehead for the Warlord Alliance. They would get off the planet soon. And then they would win. If he’d hoped for more, well… that had been foolish, just as it had been foolish to give in to the need to be alone. Despite craving escape from the sidelong glances and silent condemnation, the instant he’d left, he’d felt a desperate fear that he’d never see any of the others again. He’d managed to push that fear aside, but now, as he opened his eyes and began at last to walk back, the anxiety returned.

His steps grew more hurried as he approached the place where he’d left the others. He made himself slow down. 

A fire was burning. They were still there, all of them. 

“Avon,” Blake said. He was kneeling close to the flames, poking at them, trying to shift the wood and raise the fire a little higher. It wasn't a cold night, and they had no need to heat their food, but apparently they'd wanted the light. Blake’s eyes flicked up to Avon when he spoke, and for a moment Avon thought Blake had winked at him, before he realized that it was only a trick of the firelight and Blake’s scar. "Anything to worry about?"

"Of course. We are stranded on a backwater planet that has just come under the Federation’s control, and they are probably hunting us,” Avon said – uncharitably, given Blake’s fine work securing a safe hideaway. “But I saw nothing out there.” 

Dayna sat with her legs stretched out in front of her, propped up on her arms. She looked relaxed, almost bored. Tarrant sat cross-legged, staring into the woods. Soolin stood, hands on hips, a toe tracing in the dry needles on the ground. Her hair was yellow gold in the dusk. 

"It hardly seems worth it to keep watch tonight. After all, it’s deserted out here, and we all need rest,” Elin said. She was probably near Tarrant’s age, her most distinctive features her pale curls and the white scar across her lips. The scar made her look fragile, drawing the eye to the beauty of her other features. In contrast, the qualities of Blake’s face were too complex, too textured to be cast into relief by the scar that pulled at his eye. 

Elin’s remark, delivered differently, might have made her seem older than her years, but she sounded scared, as though she was hoping someone would contradict her. 

Elin, Klyn, Deva, and Brend were the extent of Blake’s new following. He supposed Blake’s caution when it came to new recruits had kept his group small, which was fortunate, since it had allowed all of them to escape the base largely unscathed. For several reasons, he found it surprising that even with their small numbers they'd all been able to survive. Avon had to admit that despite berating Soolin, Dayna, Tarrant and Vila for stupidity that was likely to get them killed, his own crew seemed far more likely to live out the year than Blake’s new friends did.

Brend was very young and very eager—even more so than Elin--perhaps eighteen, or nineteen. A local GP boy. His dark skin was smooth, his eyes large and hopeful. Then there was nervous Deva, and the wronged Klyn, who had leaned on Deva the entire way through the woods without any apparent embarrassment. Avon had shot her, she disliked and mistrusted him, and yet allowed him see how badly he’d injured her. Avon himself would never have permitted himself to show that kind of weakness, no matter what it cost him to conceal it.

His gaze, he realized, had fallen on Klyn and then failed to move on. She gave him a tight, unfriendly smile that somehow communicated more dislike than a glare would have. She could probably tell he didn’t think much of her, or their chances for survival. He hadn’t tried to keep the thought off his face. And why should he make the effort? They still would have hated him anyway. 

“There’s always a chance something will go wrong,” Deva said. “I won’t be able to sleep unless we _do_ set a watch.”

“What could go wrong?” Brend asked, but he, too, sounded unconvinced by his own words. They both seemed shocked and nervous after the day’s events, unable to believe now that they were safe. 

“When has the answer to that question _ever_ been nothing?” Deva replied.

They turned to Blake, waiting to hear what he’d decide for them. 

“We can watch in pairs, two hours each,” Blake said. “That shouldn’t exhaust anyone too much.”

“If we rest for eight solid hours--and I think we ought to--and if Klyn sleeps through the night, that leaves one extra person,” Deva pointed out.

Avon was a little annoyed at the presumption that he and his people were included under Blake’s authority now, automatically part of whatever Blake planned, but he couldn’t find it in himself to disagree. The plan made sense. If he was going to argue, he would need an alternative to suggest instead, or he’d would only find himself agreeing after the argument and looking even more foolish. Anyway, he was bone tired. The effort didn’t seem worthwhile. 

“Anyone mind if I sleep the whole night, then?” Vila asked. “I’m worn out.”

“You can’t be any more tired than the rest of us. Why don’t we play cards for the privilege?” Tarrant said. 

“We haven’t got any cards. I suppose we could draw straws,” Elin said.

“Vila would cheat,” Dayna said. 

“Stories, then,” Vila said. “The best one wins.”

“What sort of stories?” Deva asked. 

“Ghost stories,” Soolin suggested, to Avon’s initial surprise. Soolin wasn’t usually so whimsical––though he did remember a time when Soolin had tried to persuade Vila and Dayna that an alien that had possessed Cally had cursed them all. He’d only half paid attention, then, caught up in calculations with a probability square.

“At least if Vila loses, he’ll be so afraid he’ll actually keep awake,” Dayna put in. 

“But I’ll win, Dayna. In fact, what do you say to a bottle of wine, too, to sweeten the deal?” Vila said.

“There’s wine in the packs,” Klyn said. 

By the look on Vila’s face, this was information he’d already had. 

**

“A man wandered in the woods alone,” Blake began. “They were the woods above the town where he once lived.” He was a good storyteller, his voice expressive and varied. 

The man, Blake told them, could not be seen, or touched, could not share in work of the village, or its gossip. His daughter had seen him once, but the sight had disturbed her terribly, and he hadn’t returned to her again.

One thing distinguished Blake’s ghost story from the usual. The village, it transpired, was a ghost village. The people were all dead by illness, all except one. Only the wanderer in the woods remained alive. 

When Blake was finished, he received rather vocal praise from his followers, from Dayna and from Vila. 

“I didn’t think you knew any stories that weren’t about the evils of the Federation, Blake,” Avon said. 

“But, it is about the Federation, isn’t it?” Brend said with intensity. “That’s just how I always felt, like everyone who let the Federation walk all over them and take everything good from them was dead, and I was the only one alive. And that made _me_ feel dead. Then I met Blake, of course.” 

Dayna laughed. 

“Well, that’s one way to look at it,” Soolin said.

“Well, there you have it, Avon, ” Blake said. Rather wearily, Avon thought, with a pang. “It seems you were right the first time. I don’t know any stories that aren’t about the Federation.”

The years away from the Liberator had been hard on Blake. Avon had no doubt that even now, nothing but death could stop Blake fighting the Federation, even if he was tired of the fight. It was a shame, somehow, to think Blake might be as driven as ever, but without his former spirit.

Brend went next. He told a simple story of a brutish man who went from town to town, terrorizing the people there. In the end the man turned over the wrong stone and lost the power to harm anyone. Brend wasn’t going to win their contest, that much was clear to Avon. Blake might, though. Everyone liked him––except perhaps Tarrant, who hadn’t liked being tested––and Blake’s story had been clever. He wondered, if Blake did win the contest, if he’d accept the chance to sleep the night while his followers stayed awake. It seemed highly unlikely. 

Tarrant told a story about a great black whale that swam in the sky, and the ghost of the man who had hunted her obsessively. Soolin told a story of a cowardly thief, a bored magician, and a clever harlot. When it was Deva’s turn, he gestured to Klyn, who’d fallen asleep on his shoulder, then put a finger to his lips, suggesting he didn’t want to wake her by speaking. 

By the time Dayna began her story, the sun was completely gone. The trees stood close and dark around them.

Her father had told her about a painting, she said, that hung in a gallery somewhere on Earth. He’d seen it once, as a young man, when he could still see. It was of a man walking down the road, sunlight streaming through a bullet hole in his chest. The painting, she said, was called “Coming Home.” Something about the story unsettled Avon, though he wasn’t certain what. It wasn’t even a story, really. Just an image. 

“What about you, Avon?” Tarrant asked. “Do you have a story for us?”

“No,” Avon said. “I couldn’t match your genius for making something out of nothing, Tarrant. But then––you have practice.” He realized, as he said it, that he might seem to be talking about Tarrant’s declaration that Blake had betrayed them all, even Avon. Avon had no desire to talk about that or think about it, so he continued, “You have no virtues to speak of, yet you still manage to speak about them incessantly.”

“The thing is,” Vila said, darting a quick, shrewd glance around the circle, “Avon doesn’t need to tell a ghost story, because he is a ghost story. The one I’m going to tell you all, in fact. 

“A while ago, Avon was trying to persuade us all to come back to Earth to get back at a man called Shrinker. Cally wouldn’t agree to it until he told us everything about why he was doing it, and after that, I started to put it all together. Avon committed a bank fraud. He tried to get away with five million credits, and almost managed it—maybe you’ve heard about it. Anyway, he was trying to get off Earth with the money. He went to pick up his exit visas, and the man he’d meant to get them from got the jump on him and shot him. Now here’s the funny thing.” Vila leaned back, letting a pause lengthen for a little while, a smile on his face. “Avon was bleeding out fast. He was dying. And he told us—you remember that, don’t you Tarrant, Dayna?—some people took him in, helped him out for a few days. Now, you aren’t all from Earth. Some of you haven’t even been there, so I’ll tell you. I lived in the Delta part of the Domes for a while—that’s where it happened to Avon—and I know Avon wasn’t going to find help if he was dying there, any more than he would if he was dying where the Alphas or Betas or Gammas lived. In the Domes, any part of them, if you’re bleeding to death, you’re bleeding to death. The only difference is how soon the body would get hauled off, and where it’d get hauled off to. The fact of the matter is, Avon died all of those years ago. He’s dead, been dead since before any of us ever met him. And every minute he’s been dead, he’s been getting a little colder, a little meaner. Forgetting what it was like to be human. He’s pretty much nothing now, colder than a coward’s feet, and I would know how cold that is. He won’t hesitate to kill you now, won’t feel anything human about it. So go ahead and sleep tonight, if you can. But he’s there—he’s watching you.” 

Vila’s manner was playful, his voice light and theatrical, but there was something hard and sad behind his eyes when Avon looked into them.

Silence followed. Everyone was looking at Avon, so he kept his face blank. Vila had said once that the trick to opening a difficult lock was to figure out how whoever had designed it thought about things. Well, the same trick seemed to apply to telling a story. Vila had figured out exactly how his audience was thinking—figured out exactly what would unsettle them and get under their skin. They were all afraid of Avon, they all hated him. As did Vila, since Malodaar. Avon doubted Vila believed his own story, but it was what Vila thought of him, all the same. Last night, Vila had kept asking, again and again, where Tarrant was, as though he thought Avon had probably killed him. Which he almost had by bringing Tarrant to Gauda Prime, and by not offering to take Tarrant’s place at the controls. But there had been no choice. As Tarrant had said, Avon wasn’t a good enough pilot.

“So let’s have a vote, then,” Vila said. 

When the votes were in, Vila smiled, bowed, and took the bottle away with him to his sleeping pallet. 

Avon lay down, expecting a sleepless night until his watch, which he would share with Blake. He had been picked last, like an un-athletic boy who his schoolfellows disdained, and Blake had had the bad luck to choose last and was now stuck with him.

**

Avon woke in a rush of panic to Blake’s hand on his shoulder, shaking him awake. It took him a moment to convince his body and mind that it was all right. Blake’s own expression was neutral, and eventually, after a few deep breaths, Avon was able to match it. Deva and Elin had obviously decided they would rather not wake him, leaving Blake to the task. Ironically, if either of them had been able to pluck up the nerve, they would have been rewarded with the sight of Avon in absolute terror. Well, fortune favored the brave—in this case, Blake. He got up and followed Blake a little way off from the seven still figures on the ground. 

They sat side by side on a fallen tree. They were far enough from the camp that they could speak quietly without being heard, but close enough to keep watch. For a while, though, they stayed silent. The night was dark and quiet. Small rustling sounds, too small to be human, came intermittently from around them. Avon let his mind wander. It was strange to have found Blake again, to be sitting beside him as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world to do. He hadn’t told Blake anything of what had happened in Blake’s absence or what he’d been planning. Probably some of the others had told Blake at least a little—probably where Cally was, at least—while he’d absented himself. It had seemed reasonable enough to seek Blake out to head the alliance, when he’d thought of the idea, but with nothing but failures to report, and having done nothing but make a fool of himself in front of Blake so far, he didn’t know how he could ask. 

“They’ll come around to you in time,” Blake said eventually. 

“What would you know about it?”

“About bringing people around, or about coming around to you, personally? In either case, quite a lot,” Blake said, with good humor. 

There was no sign of the weariness Avon had seen in him earlier. Maybe the night’s rest had helped. It couldn’t be Avon’s company, which the others had rightly shunned, although Blake was being surprisingly friendly and companionable towards him. Stupid of Blake not to hate him––if, in fact, he didn’t. Avon had treated Blake nearly as badly as any of them. Avon knew he deserved worse than what he was getting. 

“Perhaps I did die back on Earth. Or if not then, perhaps later on,” Avon said.

“Give me your hand,” Blake said, and Avon complied. Blake clasped it in his. 

"Yes. Just as I thought. It’s warm," Blake said.

Avon could have argued that that was a willfully simple way of looking at things, but he didn’t. Blake’s hand was warm, too.


End file.
